Q: My question is about the horse that retired from the Atlanta Police Department. What will happen to him? Will they send him to a retirement farm?
—Linda France, Sandy Springs
A: Smokey left for a farm in Oklahoma shortly after he retired from the Atlanta Police Department's Mounted Patrol Unit following a ceremony on July 14.
“Smokey will be hanging out with another horse at the barn,” an APD spokesman told Q&A on the News in an email. “He is doing well and adapting well to the new barn, and is making new friends out there.
“Smokey is living the life of leisure.”
The APD set up a Twitter account for Smokey while he was with the department.
That account — @ApdSmokey — now belongs to Hercules, another horse with the mounted patrol unit.
Q: I’ve noticed that when I receive personal mail, it often appears that there has been no cancellation of the stamp and there’s no printed date/place of it running through a postage meter. Are items being cancelled now? And, if not, what keeps anyone from re-using the stamps?
—Barbara Ribner, Decatur
A: There are "rare occasions" when stamped mail inadvertently is included with metered mail, a United States Postal Service spokesman told Q&A on the News in an email.
Metered mail “bypasses the cancellation phase of the processing system,” he wrote.
“The USPS continues to cancel stamped mail at its processing plants. The re-use of stamps has not been an issue.”
Andy Johnston with Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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